The "Student Non-Discrimination Act of 2010" is one of the most current related acts being discussed in Washington. The bill is currently in committee in the House of Representatives- H.R. 4530 (Click HERE for current status) and also in the Senate- S. 3390 (Click HERE for the current status).
The goal of this bill is to: "To end discrimination based on actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity in public schools, and for other purposes." Click HERE to read the full bill.
I wanted to share an important victory with you. We recently secured the right of a Christian student club to include the name of “Jesus” in their advertisements and public address announcements at a Michigan public middle school. We were contacted by a parent of a student in The Net, a Christian student club that has been in existence at the middle school for over three years. Clubs at the middle school are required to receive permission from a faculty advisor before posting signs at the school that advertise club meetings or events. The club received permission to put up signs advertising the club’s meetings. Two signs posted at the school stated: “Want to get to know Jesus? Come to the Net.” The Assistant Principal removed one sign and told the students in the club to remove the other one because students might be offended by the signs. She said that new signs could be put up if they did not include Jesus’ name, although the signs could include the word “Bible.” She also said that The Net’s advertisements would be carefully reviewed and may be edited to ensure that Jesus is not mentioned. The school district had a practice of not permitting any student groups to mention the name of a religious leader in its announcements or advertisements. The Assistant Principal also stated that the school would be endorsing the club’s religious viewpoint - in violation of the “separation of church and state” - if it granted permission for the club to post a sign that contains the name of Jesus. We sent a demand letter to the school that explained that the First Amendment and the Equal Access Act protected The Net’s right to advertise events of interest to the group on the same terms as other student groups at the school. We cited Board of Education v. Mergens, 496 U.S. 226 (1990) - a case we won before the Supreme Court - in which the Court explained, “secondary school students are mature enough and are likely to understand that a school does not endorse or support student speech that it merely permits on a nondiscriminatory basis. The proposition that schools do not endorse everything they fail to censor is not complicated.” We also cited recent district court cases that held that public schools violate the Equal Access Act by censoring a student group’s proposed announcements or posters where there is no evidence that the expression promotes illegal activity or is likely to create a substantial disruption of the educational process. We received a letter back from the school district that stated that “after reviewing the ACLJ letter with our attorney, we will allow the name of a religious leader, in this case, Jesus, to be used in a student-initiated and student-led advertisement.”
The goal of this bill is to: "To end discrimination based on actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity in public schools, and for other purposes." Click HERE to read the full bill.
Webnews from: http://www.aclj.org/TrialNotebook/Read.aspx?ID=859
We were contacted by a parent of a student in The Net, a Christian student club that has been in existence at the middle school for over three years. Clubs at the middle school are required to receive permission from a faculty advisor before posting signs at the school that advertise club meetings or events. The club received permission to put up signs advertising the club’s meetings. Two signs posted at the school stated: “Want to get to know Jesus? Come to the Net.”
The Assistant Principal removed one sign and told the students in the club to remove the other one because students might be offended by the signs. She said that new signs could be put up if they did not include Jesus’ name, although the signs could include the word “Bible.” She also said that The Net’s advertisements would be carefully reviewed and may be edited to ensure that Jesus is not mentioned. The school district had a practice of not permitting any student groups to mention the name of a religious leader in its announcements or advertisements. The Assistant Principal also stated that the school would be endorsing the club’s religious viewpoint - in violation of the “separation of church and state” - if it granted permission for the club to post a sign that contains the name of Jesus.
We sent a demand letter to the school that explained that the First Amendment and the Equal Access Act protected The Net’s right to advertise events of interest to the group on the same terms as other student groups at the school. We cited Board of Education v. Mergens, 496 U.S. 226 (1990) - a case we won before the Supreme Court - in which the Court explained, “secondary school students are mature enough and are likely to understand that a school does not endorse or support student speech that it merely permits on a nondiscriminatory basis. The proposition that schools do not endorse everything they fail to censor is not complicated.” We also cited recent district court cases that held that public schools violate the Equal Access Act by censoring a student group’s proposed announcements or posters where there is no evidence that the expression promotes illegal activity or is likely to create a substantial disruption of the educational process.
We received a letter back from the school district that stated that “after reviewing the ACLJ letter with our attorney, we will allow the name of a religious leader, in this case, Jesus, to be used in a student-initiated and student-led advertisement.”